The Geomancer

5/24/06

Bookgasm Wild for River of Gods

Posted by
Lou Anders

Ryun Patterson of Bookgasm can't get enough of Ian McDonald's River of Gods:

"It’s one hell of a novel. Easily trumping any speculative fiction from the past couple of years, River of Gods is an exuberant leap into the future of India through the eyes of nine disparate characters. As their stories mingle and merge, McDonald not only weaves a tremendous yarn of mysteries and technological magic, but the truly illustrates the dilemmas lying in wait for humanity as we continue to leapfrog from one discovery to the next, inevitably toward a future we could never predict."

Ryun goes on to say, "readers are left needing more, despite the fact that, unlike certain doorstop-sized tomes of recent years, McDonald knows how to end a story. Revelation after revelation resolve themselves in a cascade of denouement that is at once thrilling and sorrowful, as if the author wants to stay in 2047 as much as the reader does. "

Those readers who want to hang around Ian's mid-21st Century India, as well as those new to his vision of 2047, can see a sample of his Hugo and Sturgeon nominated novella, "The Little Goddess," which takes place in the same milieu as River of Gods and is partially excerpted on Asimovs.com. Also of note, Ian recently delivered to Yours Truly another tale of future India, "Sanjeev and Robotwallah," a short story to be included in the upcoming Pyr anthology, Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge.